


sleepwalker

by pyrality



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Character Study, Found Family, Implied Sexual Content, Insomnia, M/M, Relationship Study, Sleepwalking, aromantic homosexual chrollo, aromantic pansexual hisoka
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-03
Updated: 2014-11-03
Packaged: 2018-02-23 22:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2557682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrality/pseuds/pyrality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>"Do you fancy yourself a prophet for the dead, boss?"</p>
  <p>"No."</p>
  <p>"Really?" Hisoka covers his mouth with fanned fingers, blood red painted nails pressed over his lips. He narrows his eyes, eyelids drooping into a hooded, sensual look, "You quite like chasing ghosts though. How romantic."</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	sleepwalker

Machi is the first person who finds out. He suffers from insomnia and when he does sleep, he sleepwalks sometimes. He remembers waking up, eyes blurring in and out of focus, seeing that he was brandishing his poisoned knife with the tip bare centimeters from Machi’s neck. Her eyes didn’t even waver. She stared at him, silent, as he slowly lowered the knife and then let the hilt slip out of his fingers.

“Are you okay?” she asked him after the knife had finished clattering to the ground.

Chrollo closed his eyes, felt unbearably tired and hyper aware of the bags hanging heavy underneath his eyes. “I keep dreaming of the past,” he answered finally, opening his eyes again.

The look in her eyes softened. She sighed, soft, patient, and bent over to pick up the knife. She stepped forward and smoothed her free hand over his forehead, “You can’t keep chasing ghosts, Chrollo."  
  
  
  
~*~  
  
  
  
(Hisoka is a miscalculation.)

The bedsheets are mussed, curled against Chrollo’s bare thighs. There’s a pleasant ache in his body, like the kind he gets after an interesting, challenging fight. It’s a good feeling. The warmth in his core is soothing and he feels faintly drowsy and content. The room is quiet, nearly silent except for the soft billow of the wind outside, barely audible through the cracked windowpane in the wall on one side, and the sound of the intermittent drip drop of the leaky faucet in the bathroom. Hisoka is standing at the edge of the sink, the flat of his hips pressed against dirty porcelain as he leans forward to look at himself in the mirror while he redraws his eyeliner. His back is to Chrollo who is sitting in the bedroom with his eyes lazily roving over the words of a book open in his palm when he hears Hisoka say, “You must have quite vivid dreams."

Chrollo snaps his gaze up, catches Hisoka’s eyes watching him through the mirror.

The redhead shrugs, the spider tattoo on his back twitching with the movement, and glances over his shoulder at him. His eyeliner is only half-drawn, already winged, but the bottom of his eye hasn’t been properly outlined. “Do you have trouble sleeping?"

Chrollo bites his tongue, considers lying, but is aware Hisoka knows him well enough now that he can’t get away with it. He looks back down to his novel, thumb pressing along the center crease of the book. He can feel his nails digging into the hard cover of the book as he curls his fingers. “I have insomnia,” he says finally. "Most nights I can only sleep a few hours or so before I wake up."

Hisoka makes a contemplative noise, turning back to the mirror. “That explains the bags under your eyes."

He remains silent after that and Chrollo finds himself feeling restless for the redhead to keep speaking, to say something judgmental or disapproving of his weakness. But only silence answers him. The dark-haired man shuts his book and tosses it onto the bed, steepling his fingers between his legs, and he tastes iron in the back of his throat. He feels tired, but no longer drowsy.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?"

“It’s useless information."

He turns around to face Chrollo, leaning his weight back against the faucet, supporting his body with his fingers grasping loosely against the edges of porcelain sink. He taps his fingers and crosses his legs at the ankles. He makes a contemplative noise and curls his toes against the tile flooring, and Chrollo feels a little warm under his skin. He looks away and brings a hand up to cover over the lower half of his face, recalling how satisfying it was when he had felt Hisoka’s toes curling against his thigh earlier—

“I’m curious about other things about you,” Hisoka taps a finger to his lips; he must've put on his lip gloss while Chrollo wasn't paying attention. His lips are pale, pale pink, shiny— Chrollo wants to kiss him. Hisoka puffs out a sigh, sounding almost impatient he has to explain himself, “Knowing you have insomnia and that you sleepwalk doesn't tell me anything about how the gears in your mind turn."

“I didn’t know you were an _intellectual_ , Hisoka."

Hisoka giggles, and the sound is so breathless and genuinely amused that Chrollo feels his own lips twitch up behind his hand.

The redhead pushes his weight off of the sink and pads towards Chrollo. His pants are riding low around his thick, full hips, loose along the lower curve of his hipbones. Chrollo suddenly feels embarrassed that he’s still naked, bare in front of the other man. He is not body shy, but there is faint heat burning under his cheeks at the way Hisoka’s eyes rove over him, lascivious and hungry. Hisoka straddles him, reaches up behind him and curls fingers into his hair at the nape of his neck. He tilts his head back to look down at Chrollo with slanted eyes.

"Do you fancy yourself a prophet for the dead, boss?" 

"No."

"Really?" Hisoka covers his mouth with fanned fingers, blood red painted nails pressed over his lips. He narrows his eyes, eyelids drooping into a hooded, sensual look, "You quite like chasing ghosts though. How romantic."

Chrollo grips Hisoka’s hips, rough, digging his nails in sharply enough that the redhead twitches. “I know you want to kill me,” he says, low, and the threatening lilt to his voice is lost in its intended effect. Hisoka only smiles in response, tongue flicking out to lick over his lips as he rolls his hips forward encouragingly. 

“I don’t want to kill you,” the redhead tsks, pressing a kiss to the corner of Chrollo’s mouth. “I want to fight you and defeat you.” He sighs, a half-moan escaping his lips when the dark-haired man slides his hands up along his sides, "But you have so much _potential_ , boss. It’d be a shame to just kill you without letting you grow."

“It doesn’t matter to me what you want from me.” Chrollo closes his eyes, thinks of the few repeating dreams he gets when he does sleep. He opens his eyes, brow furrowed, voice low and dark, “Just leave the rest of the troupe out of this."

“The troupe, hm? Your found family,” Hisoka croons sweetly, and he only smiles wider when Chrollo glares sharply at him. “You needn’t worry, boss. I dislike playing house," Hisoka’s smile turns into a grin, sharp at the edges, "but I don’t hate them." 

Hisoka isn’t lying, that much he knows. Chrollo hums, feeling somewhat more at ease. He reaches up and tips his fingers beneath Hisoka’s chin, stroking his thumb over his lower lip and smearing the pale pink lipgloss down over the corner of his mouth.

“You just put on all your makeup,” he says slowly, eyes tracing over the sharp, crisp lines of Hisoka’s eyeliner and the flare of his mascara thick eyelashes. The lines and colors of the star and teardrop on his cheeks are fresh as well, and his lipgloss really does look good.

Hisoka hums, kisses his thumb and nips at his skin teasingly. 

“Make me put it on again later then."  
  
  
  
~*~  
  
  
  
Chrollo sees Hisoka again, a few weeks after they parted after his nen was sealed. He tells him about the nen exorcist he needs to remove the judgment chain from his heart and he doesn’t skim or deflect from a promise to fight Hisoka once he does recover his nen. The removal of the judgment chain will allow him contact with the troupe again— he could care less about the fight he has promised Hisoka, but he knows that half-assing this fight would mean Hisoka will turn his attention to attacking the troupe instead. They are on the same page and Hisoka seems pleased, his satisfaction visible in the way his eyes track Chrollo’s movements restlessly like a predator stalking a prized prey. 

(He hasn’t been chasing ghosts for awhile now, even if it meant leaving the memories of countless former comrades behind. The Phantom Troupe is the family he needs, and they are in the present.) 

“You don’t sleepwalk anymore, do you?” Hisoka asks him, thumb smoothing over the bottom of Chrollo’s eye, where there are no longer heavy eyebags.

“No,” he answers, and it feels like a breath of fresh air when Hisoka smiles at him and tells him he will certainly enjoy killing him.


End file.
